Carole Mortimer - From New York With Love

And now this!

He drew a deep breath into his starved lungs before turning back to face her, his own face slightly in shadow as he stood out of the full glow of the flickering candlelight. ‘You believe I made a conscious decision not to take you out to a restaurant for dinner this evening because I didn’t want to be seen publicly in your company?’

* * *

Ah. That was the comment that had annoyed him...

Thia gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It’s no big deal, Lucien. Believe me, I’ve seen photos of the women you usually escort, and I don’t even come close—’

‘Seen how?’ he prompted suspiciously.

She gave a self-conscious grimace. ‘I—er—checked you out online earlier this evening,’ she admitted reluctantly, wishing Lucien wasn’t standing in the shadows so that she could see the expression on his face.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because I wanted to know more about the man I had agreed to have dinner with, alone in his apartment,’ she came back defensively. ‘I was using that sense of self-preservation you seem to think I have so little of.’

He gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘And after reading about me online, seeing photographs of the women I usually escort, you came to the conclusion I was deliberately keeping you hidden away in my apartment this evening because I didn’t want to be seen out in public with you?’

‘Oh, no. I decided that after you made the invitation earlier today,’ Thia dismissed easily.

His brows rose. ‘Can I ask why?’

She sighed heavily. ‘When was the last time you cooked dinner for a woman in your apartment?’

‘What does that—?’

‘Just answer the question, please, Lucien,’ she cajoled teasingly.

He shrugged. ‘I think tonight is the first time I’ve cooked dinner in my apartment at all—let alone for or with a woman.’

‘Exactly.’ Thia had noticed earlier that none of the state-of-the-art equipment in the kitchen looked as if it had ever been used.

His mouth thinned. ‘If you must know, I made the invitation initially because I suspected your having dinner alone with me here would throw you into something of a panic, and I wanted to see what you would do.’

‘And I called your bluff and accepted.’ She gave a rueful shake of her head.

‘Yes, you did.’ He nodded slowly.

‘Probably best not to challenge me again, hmm?’

‘I don’t regret a single moment of this evening.’

Thia’s cheeks bloomed with heated colour as she recalled the earlier part of the evening, when Lucien had ripped her blouse. ‘You were also aware, because I told you so last night, that New York society has absolutely no interest in furthering its acquaintance with a waitress from London. Just think how shocked they would have been to see Lucien Steele in a restaurant with me!’

He breathed his impatience. ‘I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.’

‘I’m really not in the least offended by any of this, Lucien.’ Thia smiled. ‘I had a good time this evening. As for New York society...I don’t enjoy their company either, so why should it bother me what any of them think of me?’

‘Do you have so little interest in what I might think of you?’ he prompted softly.

That was a difficult question to answer. Thia was so attracted to Lucien that of course it mattered to her whether or not he liked her—just as it mattered what he thought of her. But by the same token it also didn’t. Because they wouldn’t ever see each other again after tonight. Even the money for the suite, which Thia was so determined to pay back to him, no matter how long it took her to do so, could be sent to his office at Steele Tower when the time came. They had no reason to see each other again once she left here this evening. Which, although disappointing, was just a fact of life. Their totally different lives...

‘I like to think I’m a realist, Lucien,’ she answered lightly. ‘Zillionaire Lucien Steele—’ she pointed to him ‘—and Cynthia Hammond, waitress/student, living from payday to payday.’ She pointed to her own chest. ‘Not exactly a basis for friendship.’

‘I have no interest in being your friend!’ he rasped with harsh dismissal.

She flinched at the starkness of his statement. ‘I believe I just said that—’

‘I have no interest in being your friend because I want to be your lover. Touch me.’ Lucien stepped forward to grasp her hand impatiently in his before lifting it to the bulge at the front of his denims.

Evidence of an arousal that Thia had been completely unaware of until that moment. She couldn’t possibly remain unaware of it now—not when she could feel the long, hard length of Lucien’s swollen shaft, the heat of it burning her fingertips as she stroked them tentatively against him. Her eyes widened as she felt the jolt, the throb, of that arousal in response to her slightest caress.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and looked up at Lucien. ‘Does one preclude the other...?’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘In my experience, yes.’

In Thia’s limited experience too...

She’d only dated maybe half a dozen times these past six years, and had always ended up being friends with those men rather than lovers. Including Jonathan. Although she suspected that their friendship had ceased after his behaviour yesterday, and yet again this morning, when he had packed her belongings into her suitcase and handed it over to Lucien seemingly without a second thought as to where or how she was.

‘Stop thinking about Miller,’ Lucien rasped.

She blinked. ‘How did you know—?’

‘I think I’m intelligent enough to know when the woman I’m with is thinking about another man,’ he bit out harshly, having known from the way Cyn’s gaze had become slightly unfocused that her attention was no longer completely here with him. Which, considering her hand was currently pressed against his pulsing erection, was less than flattering.

She gave a rueful smile. ‘I sincerely doubt it’s happened to you often enough for that to be true.’

‘It’s never happened to me before, as far as I’m aware,’ he grated.

He lifted her hand away impatiently before pulling her to her feet, so that she now stood just inches in front of him. His other hand moved beneath her chin to raise her face, so that she had no choice but to look up at him. ‘And, yes, I was challenging you earlier. I wanted to unnerve you a little by inviting you to my apartment. But I did not have dinner with you here as a way of hiding you away. I’m insulted that you should ever have thought that I did.’ He was more than insulted—he actually felt hurt that Cyn could believe him capable of behaving in that way where she was concerned...

Thia could see that he was. His eyes glittered dangerously, there was angry colour along those high cheekbones, his lips had thinned and his jaw thrust forward forcefully.

‘I apologise if I was mistaken.’

‘You were,’ he bit out. ‘You still are.’

She nodded; Lucien was too upset not to be telling her the truth.

‘Have I succeeded in ruining the evening?’ She looked up at him through long dark lashes.

Lucien eyed her impatiently. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

She drew in a shaky breath. ‘How about we clear away in here while you decide?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you humouring me, Thia?’

The fact that Lucien had called her Thia for the first time was indicative of how upset he was. ‘Is it working?’ she deliberately used the same phrase he had to her earlier, when she had challenged him about always wanting his own way.

Some of the tension left his shoulders. ‘Maybe a little,’ he conceded dryly. ‘And we can just blow out the candles in here and leave all this for housekeeping to clear away in the morning.’ He indicated the dinner table beside them.